NEPAD Agency CEO speaks to the Youth and Media

Addis Ababa, July 2, 2017 - As part of the efforts to create a platform for African youth to start talking among themselves on issues that concern them and the continent, the NEPAD Agency hosted an engagement session between its CEO and the youth and media attending the 29th African Union Summit.

The proposal to host the session stemmed from the need for the NEPAD Agency to fully engage African youth and media on issues and topics that directly affect them.

Dr Mayaki spoke to and with the Youth on various issues, namely Industrialisation, agriculture, ubranisation, nutrition and food security, migration and many challenges and opportunities facing the African continent.

Below are some memorable quotes from Dr Mayaki on these issues:

“In a continent where the median age is 19 years old, governance cannot be the same as in other regions of the world, where you have a median age of fourty and more. The huge proportion of young people in our continent leads us to think about governance systems in a different manner. ”

“The AU has decided to tackle the issue of harnessing the youth dividend. There must be a platform where debates take place so the youth, through the media, can input into policy design processes and implementation.

" Africa is the only region that has not been fully exploited which explains the scramble for its natural assets"

“The natural resources of this continent cannot belong to a few, they need to belong to many”

“Technological innovation is a must in our industrialization process because we are late-comers in the global economy”

“The state has an important role to play because it is its responsibility to support small-scale farmers to become micro entrepreneurs.”

“Agricultural transformation will lead to industrialization because it will create better conditions of wealth in rural areas and allow a diversification of a rural economy”

“For trade to happen, we need to produce more, and we need to focus on diversified production.”

“On urbanisation vs ruralisation of the youth – Policy wise, we need to transform the rural space, to make it attractive to youth”

“If we do not tackle the conditions of the poor in rural areas, we will not be faced with migration issues, instead we will have to tackle governance issues as this might lead to conflict and absence of peace.”

“The main challenge we face in the next thrity years, 400 million Africans alive today will come into the job market, so we cannot do business as usual. “

“In the last twenty years, Africa has made progress in terms of nutrition. But, we still need to do more and we need to do it quicker. We must remember that Hunger has a cost and impacts on GDP”